A friend of mine and fellow sxs enthusiast was showing me his 28ga nitro special the other day. It was a twenty gauge that he'd bought from a hobby gun seller on the internet.
When he got it the 20ga barrels had been sleeved down to 28ga by a fitting which could only be described as plumbinglike. I know the Pieper french guns had a stepped barrel connection to the monoblock, but this looked just like something you'd see in the pipes under your house.
Anyhow my friend had just had a gunsmith smooth out the connection and engrave a design around the joint. 100% improvement...Geo
Pieper figured out pretty quickly he needed to make that obvious seam go away. So he did. While the monobloc reduces cost by simplifying manufacturing, the gun buying public doesn't want to know about it. They just want to save the money.
